Oculus Go might be the VR gadget you actually buy, Vine’s much anticipated return comes to a standstill, and Facebook harvests more than 3.5 billion Instagram photos.

From Reddit – The long arm of Facebook has harvested billions of your selfies and photos of your dinner, according to the company’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer, who recently spoke at Facebook’s annual developers’ conference. In order to boost its own research and improve its moderation efforts, Facebook decided to harvest photos from billions of Instagram accounts around the world, without notifying its users. Facebook has added 20,000 new human moderators for its platform, while trying to incorporate automation to rely less on reactive reporting. The news comes just weeks after the company’s biggest data scandal in history, when it was revealed Facebook shared private details of 87 million users with a researcher, who sold them to Cambridge Analytica, which allegedly used the personal information to influence the 2016 US election. The firm has since announced it was shutting down.

From Google Trends – Facebook’s Oculus division is hoping to make a bigger splash with its latest VR headset called the Oculus Go. The $200 device comes with no cables, is much easier to use and works for iPhones, Android devices and PCs. Early reviews suggest the quality of what you see is a little bit better, thanks to some new screening technology, and that the headset itself is slightly more comfortable. Facebook says Oculus does not sure people’s data with the social network for third-party advertising, but it does let apps track movements, literally.

Also on Google Trends – Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann says the planned sequel to the short-form video app, tentatively called V2, has been postponed for an indefinite amount of time. The V2 project still has to get around some significant funding and logistical hurdles, according to Hofmann, who adds the V2 project was announced last year mostly as a way to gauge the public’s interest in a potential Vine successor. After Twitter acquired and later shut down Vine early 2017, Hofmann went on to co-found HQ Trivia, a live game show app played by hundreds of thousands of users each day.

That’s what’s trending this week. Hashtag Trending is produced by the ITWC Podcast Network. If you enjoy Hashtag Trending, please be sure to give us a rating and a review on Amazon, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever else you get your podcasts from. And if you’re looking for more of our content, check out the rest of the ITWC Podcast Network, home to our other podcasts Tech in Sports and Cybersecurity Today.

Author: Alex Coop

Editor of Channel Daily News and a contributor to IT World Canada and ITBusiness.ca. A former community reporter, when Alex isn't writing about the tech scene you can find him playing or watching basketball, reading comics and looking up slow-cook meals. He’s also a massive fan of bow ties.